“Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice. We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story. What is bravery, and what is bravado?”

In November 2010, speaking at a Remembrance Day service in London to honour journalists killed while reporting from war zones, Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin spoke eloquently and, as it turns out, prophetically, about the risks, rewards and responsibilities of her “hard calling.”

“Covering a war means going to places torn by chaos, destruction and death, and trying to bear witness,” she said. “And yes, it means taking risks . . . It has never been more dangerous to be a war correspondent because the journalist in the combat zone has become a prime target.

On Wednesday, this courageous and compassionate American-born reporter was killed in Homs, Syria, along with French photographer Remi Ochlik, 28, when government forces shelled the house they were staying in while documenting the military massacre of Syrian citizens. There is much speculation that these journalists were deliberately targeted by President Bashar Assad’s regime.

For journalists and news organizations committed to reporting from the world’s conflict zones, as certainly the Toronto Star is, these deaths once again underscore the inherent risks of the media’s responsibility to bear witness to history’s conflicts.

These considerable risks, along with the emotional and psychological toll of reporting from conflict zones portrayed so powerfully in Toronto director Martyn Burke’s recently released documentary, Under Fire: Journalists in Combat, have caused some to question the risks journalists take.

Is the world becoming too dangerous for journalists?

In a 2010 address to the International News Safety Institute, Reuters editor-in-chief David Schlesinger asked whether it’s time for journalists to reassess “the need to be in the midst of danger.

“We have to be ready to lose the shot to avoid being shot,” he said. “We must be ready to lose some stories to avoid losing yet more lives.”

Schlesinger wasn’t suggesting the media abandon covering conflict zones, but rather that more thought and preparation be brought to bear on any assignment. That’s an important discussion within any news organization.

Lynn McAuley, the Star’s foreign editor, believes it is “critical” that news organizations continue to do “the most important work we can — telling truth to power and bearing witness.” But, she stresses, it’s also critical that all involved fully understand the risks and take proper precautions in advance and out in the field.

To that end, the Star provides danger-zone training for its reporters assigned to cover conflict and wars. The Star is now reviewing this training with plans underway for updated sessions.

Such training is vital. But out in the field, when bullets are flying and danger lurks in every alley, it’s largely up to the individual journalist to size up the risks of any story to be told.

“I definitely wouldn’t put myself in the company of front-line veteran reporters like Colvin, but for the reporting I have done from conflict zones her words about asking ‘what is bravery and what is bravado’ resonate,” said the Star’sMichelle Shephard, who has reported from both Yemen and Somalia in the past year.

“I always try to calculate a risk-return ratio when thinking about stories, asking can I write or show something that will really make a difference, really give voice to the voiceless or highlight something others are ignoring. If so, with careful preparation, then I think it’s okay to take some risks.”

Foreign affairs writer Olivia Ward, formerly the Star’s correspondent in the former Soviet Union, who had met Colvin in various war zones, told me that “every day in many war zones, it’s exactly as Marie said:

“You have to weigh up the risk and the benefit and make life and death choices that seem very mundane. Should we go to this village or that one? Should we stop and eat now or later?

“The thing that has always driven me is bearing witness. Not just to see what happens in front of your eyes, but to talk to people as widely as possible and get the fullest picture of the human and the political,” Ward said.

Mitch Potter, now the Star’s Washington bureau chief and formerly our Middle East correspondent, believes much depends on the reporter in the field.

“The crux boils down to the individual reporter's motivation. Are you there for what you can bring to the story or what you can take from it?” he said. “People like Marie Colvin, who I first met in Gaza 10 years ago and encountered again and again in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, just brought it — not just the steely will to bear witness but the thousand-plus specialized tricks of the trade that help minimize risk while maximizing understanding.”

The many complex reasons why journalists put themselves in harm’s way to bring you these stories are better explored in Burke’s documentary (of which Shephard served as an associate producer).

But here, the last word must go to Colvin, considered to have been one of the world’s pre-eminent war correspondents.

“The real difficulty is having enough faith in humanity to believe that enough people, be they government, military or the man on the street, will care when your file reaches the printed page, the website or the TV screen,” she said in her 2010 speech.

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